Generally, when fires are caused dry powder fire extinguishers or foam extinguishers put the fires out by spraying chemicals contained in them onto the fires. Alternatively, after hoses are coupled to fire hydrants, high-pressure water, supplied from the fire hydrants, is discharged directly to the fires to extinguish the fires. Typically, halogen was used as fire fighting medium. However, use of halogen has been prohibited due to environmental problems. Therefore, gas and water systems have been used in fire extinguishing devices.
Recently, according to development of fire extinguishing technique, automatic fire extinguishing systems, such as sprinklers arranged on ceilings in buildings to rapidly sense fires and discharge water, have been used to extinguish fires in early stages.
However, the conventional sprinklers, discharge water in large droplets to extinguish fires. Accordingly, compared with the amount of water consumption, the speed of extinguishing the fire is very slow. In addition, in the case of petroleum or gasoline fires, sprinklers cannot efficiently extinguish the oil fires due to the tendency of water not to nix with oil. Furthermore, because a great amount of water is discharged the water may damage materials and articles that would not be harmed by the fires.
In the meantime, conventional fire extinguishing devices using gas (CO2, N2) must be operated after people take shelter and all building vents are closed. Therefore, initial extinguishing operations are nearly impossible. Furthermore, fire extinguishing devices using gas may cause safety hazards due to incorrect operation.
To avoid the above-mentioned problems, another fire extinguishing devices using atomized water have been proposed. In detail, these fire extinguishing devices spray atomized water on fires, thus extinguishing the fires using a relatively small amount of water, preventing subsidiary damage by the water, and reducing construction and manufacturing costs of the fire extinguishing devices. Furthermore, in the fire extinguishing devices using atomized water, sprayed water is changed into vapors by heat of the fires. Due to the generation of the vapor and an increase in volume of vapor due to the heat, density of oxygen around the fires is rapidly reduced. In addition, the generation of vapor prevents radiant heat of the fires from being transferred to surrounding materials, particularly inflammable materials. Therefore, the fire extinguishing devices using atomized water can stably extinguish fires in the early stages.
As such, recently, studies on fire extinguishing devices using atomized water are gathering strength. For example, a fire extinguishing device using atomized water was proposed in Korean Patent Registration No. 210033 (Filed: 22 Apr. 1999), entitled ‘FIRE FIGHTING EQUIPMENT’, and filed by Sundholm of Finland. Furthermore, a single fluid nozzle using a single fluid was proposed in Korean Utility Model No. 258499 (Filed: 11 Dec. 2001), entitled ‘SPRAY NOZZLE FOR FIRE FIGHTING’, and filed by Hyundai Fire Industrial Const of Korea. As shown in FIG. 1, another single fluid nozzle using a single fluid was proposed in Korean Utility Model No. 280754 (Filed: 25 Jun. 2002), entitled ‘SPRAY DEVICE FOR FIRE FIGHTING’, and filed by the inventor of the present invention. In addition, two-fluid nozzles using two kinds of fluids, such as gas and water, were proposed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,014,790, U.S. Pat. No. 4,989,675 and U.S. Pat. No. 2,361,144.
However, the conventional two fluid-nozzles are generally used to extinguish fires in small spaces. Furthermore, because pipes for both gas and water must be arranged the two fluid-nozzles are problematic in that construction costs are increased and difficulty in maintenance remains.
In the meantime, the device of above-mentioned No. 210033 has an integrated single body. Therefore, when the device breaks down, the device causes inconvenience to a user due to the difficulty of disassembling the equipment. Furthermore, the fire fighting equipment uses water under a high pressure of about 50˜200 bar. Therefore, leakage of the water may occur in pipes, and thereby the user may be exposed to hazards.
In the meantime, the conventional single fluid nozzles of Korean U.M Registration No. 258499 and No. 208754 do not have a mesh or a filter. Therefore, there exists possibility to deteriorate the ability of the nozzle due to the clogging.